- Football Manager: the diary of a descent into madness - 1 April 2014
Written by Iain Macintosh While putting together the book, Football Manager Stole My Life, my co-authors and I trawled hundreds of personal accounts of virtual chalkboard addiction. We spoke to games journalists, psychologists and actual, real life footballers who had been afflicted. We even went back and played innumerable seasons of classic Championship/Football Manager too. Just for research. Oh Christ, here come the sweats. We never set out to help cure anyone. All we wanted to do was to let people know that they were not alone. That there were others like them out there, wandering this world in body while their minds were elsewhere entirely. Probably scouting the Eredivisie for 19 year-old wingbacks. All roads lead back to Holland. What follows is an amalgamation of stories designed to show you what lurks in the shadows of this hidden world, a bit like those one of those videos abo…
- Football Manager 2013 hands-on, or feet-on, with Sports Interactive’s streamlined sim - 12 October 2012
Football, to paraphrase the great Bill Shankly, may be more important than life and death, but sadly such inconveniences tend to get in the way of the digital version. In recent years I’ve found myself drifting away from Sports Interactive’s series as it grows steadily more complex – and with it, more time-consuming. This season’s headline feature, the stripped-back Classic mode, feels made for me: I can whizz through a season in half the time, ignoring peripheral concerns and concentrating on buying players, picking my team and sending them out to do me proud. Crucially, it still feels like FM: convenient, rather than compromised. I start the preview version by taking the reins at Man City. It feels strange: the point of FM is the realisation of the eternal fan complaint, “I could do a better job”. In the past, picking City gave you the chance to exceed low expectations, but no longer…
- Football Manager 2013 release date announced, pre-orders come with beta access - 28 September 2012
Attention, ballfoot fans! Get out the iron and flatten out those touchline suits. The latest iteration of Football Manager will go live on Steam at one minute past midnight on November 02, and you can get in two weeks early if you pre-order from one of these places. That's according to an announcement post on the Football Manager 2012 site, which explains that the beta version "will be very close to the final game." It'll include "FM, classic mode & challenges," but no network game. Beta saves will be compatible with the full game when it's released. You can hear about this year's updates, and the new classic mode, from the ever-affable Miles Jacobson in our Football Manager 2013 interview. If you'd rather get the goods via your eyes have a look at the Football Manager 2013 announcement video.
- Football Manager 2013: Miles Jacobson interview - 7 September 2012
“I’m pretty happy with the way it is at the moment,” says Sports Interactive boss Miles Jacobson of the latest edition of the world’s most popular footy management sim. After yesterday’s video announcement, we rang Miles for a chinwag about challenges, cheats and camera angles – and why this year’s edition promises to be the most accessible Football Manager in years. This year’s big new addition is the streamlined Classic Mode. What prompted you to introduce it? It’s been in planning for a few years. There aren’t many features that we come up with immediately and put it into next year because we tend to work in three-year cycles - so at the moment even though I’m directing FM13 I’m still involved with designing 14, 15 and 16. But something we’ve seen happening more and more over the last few years, particularly in comments sections on more mainstream games sites and in newspapers for ex…
- Football Manager 2013 announced – video reveals new features - 6 September 2012
By Chris Schilling It’s that time of year when the leaves turn brown, the air gets chilly, and the ass-shaped groove in your favourite chair gets a little deeper. Yes, it’s almost Football Manager time – and, much like a new boss cheerfully clutching a wad of petrodollars from an obscenely wealthy overseas backer, this year’s edition arrives promising wholesale changes. The headlining feature of Football Manager 2013 is a welcome one for those who’ve grown rather overwhelmed by the feature creep in recent years. The new Classic mode – or ‘FMC’ as the press blurb is keen to refer to it as – cuts out many of the minor responsibilities, allowing you to focus on the fundamentals. “We decided to try to find a way to accommodate players with limited free time, without significantly diluting the experience,” says Sports Interactive’s Miles Jacobson. SI suggests that FMC allows players to compl…
- SEGA closes offices in France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Benelux. London HQ will remain - 28 June 2012
SEGA have just announced that many of their European offices are about to close. New distribution partners have been announced across France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The veteran developer/publisher are "realigning" their strategy and closing all offices apart from the London headquarters. The UK office will be responsible for managing European distribution from July 1st, assisted by Koch Media, Level03 Distribution and 5 Star Games. “SEGA is entering a new and exciting phase that will position the company as a content led organisation maximising sales with strong and balanced IP such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War, Football Manager and the Aliens franchise,” said Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe. Rumours of closures originated at E3 but were quickly snuffed out by Studio Director at Sports Interactive, Miles Jacobson. His crytpic tweet may o…
- Why I play Football Manager: the story of Shane “the wonder kid” Paul - 26 October 2011
Football Manager 2012 has been released, and like every year, the same questions are being asked: Why does a game that looks like Microsoft Excel sell so well? Why would you want to manage footballers when they could be playing them? Why do so many people play it for hours on end? Well I've played a lot of Football Manager over the years, so I'm going to try and explain why. It's because despite all the stats and number crunching, Football Manager is a game about stories. It's about the little narratives that emerge from every game. Like this one. The story of Shane Paul. This tale comes from way back in Football Manager 2006. I was doing the same thing I do every year; trying to win the Champion's League with my beloved Aston Villa. In my way were Italian giants Inter Milan, who had more money, a better squad and a long tradition of winning things. The first leg of the game had not gon…
- Football Manager 2012 demo out now - 6 October 2011
The Football Manger 2012 demo is available now on Steam, offering the first half-season of 11 quick-start leagues set in England, Australia, Scotland, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. If you manage to put together a decent squad and can't bear to lose them, you'll be able to carry over all of your progress into the full version when it's released on October 21. "The demo includes the biggest leagues in the world and allows you to put your managerial skills to the test on a global stage," reads the Steam blurb, which explains why it weighs in at just over 2.7 GB. That's 2.7 GB of pure, sweet footballing data. Yum.
- Football Manager 2012 Steam DRM enrages fans - 28 September 2011
Football Manager fans have voiced their anger at the integration of Steamworks into Football Manager 2012. The move to Steam means copies of the game will need to be activated online before being able to play. Eurogamer indicates 40 pages of comments reacting to the news on the Sports Interactive forums, with thousands of posts from fans angry with the changes. Some fans are threatening to boycott the series until the online activation requirement is removed. Sega tell Eurogamer that Football Manager has moved to Steam to combat piracy. "Make no mistake, if a quarter of the people that usually pirate the game switch to purchasing Football Manager 2012, the sales of the game worldwide would more than double," they say. "This would lead to increased development budgets and more benefits for all of you who do buy the game." "We've taken this decision because we believe that the steps the c…
- Football Manager 2012 release date announced, scouting detailed - 13 September 2011
Sports Interactive recently announced that the latest entry in the veteran Football Manager series would be out later this year. Eurogamer have the date. It's October 21. The release date announcement was revealed in the first entry in what will become a series of blog posts providing detailed info on FM 2012's new features. Today, Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson discusses improvements to the scouting system, and talks about the unique inside access the studio has to professional scouts in the field. Update: slotted in the latest trailer above. Thanks to The Reticule for the heads up. "We’ve very luck at Sports Interactive to have a large number of fans in amongst football, including many scouts who, with permission from their employers, give us the real scouting reports that they put together for teams when watching them for the manager." writes Jacobson. This real wo…
- The best custom leagues for Football Manager 2011 - 26 July 2011
Do you find yourself getting bored with the usual league systems present in Football Manager? Have you always wanted to see a British Superleague or have the chance to play in a league based on the USSR circa 1991? If you can say yes to any of those questions then this list is what you need. Inside you can find five of the best, or most bizarre, custom leagues ready for you to play right now. To install a custom league just download the file, extract it and place it in your Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2011/editor data folder (you may have to create this). When you start a new game you'll see a section called 'Editor data files', tick the box marked 'change' and you'll be able to select which custom leagues you want. After that you can choose them from the database as normal. 1. Celtic League My Celtic roots demand that I mention the Celtic League by El Generico. This l…
- 5 essential Football Manager 2011 mods - 12 July 2011
Football Manager 2011 has plenty of custom leagues and new skins, but mods themselves are pretty scarce. Still, we've selected the top five Mods to customise and streamline your Football Manager 2011 experience. Click through for the mods, and details of how to download. 1.Genie Scout Genie Scout is the ultimate spying tool, everything you ever wanted to know about a player, staff member or club is available at your fingertips. Search for anyone present in your save game database and find out every last detail, including those special hidden attributes that you never get to see in the game. The best time to use it is when you scouts recommend a player from Belize but don't reveal many of his stats. Hit up Genie Scout and you will learn everything you want to know about him, from his current ability to his potential ability. If David Cameron had this, maybe he would've seen Andy Coulson'…
- Five essential Football Manager 2011 mods - 12 July 2011
Football Manager 2011 has plenty of custom leagues and new skins, but mods themselves are pretty scarce. Still, we've selected the top five Mods to customise and streamline your Football Manager 2011 experience. Click through for the mods, and details of how to download. 1.Genie Scout Genie Scout is the ultimate spying tool, everything you ever wanted to know about a player, staff member or club is available at your fingertips. Search for anyone present in your save game database and find out every last detail, including those special hidden attributes that you never get to see in the game. The best time to use it is when you scouts recommend a player from Belize but don't reveal many of his stats. Hit up Genie Scout and you will learn everything you want to know about him, from his current ability to his potential ability. If David Cameron had this, maybe he would've seen Andy Coulson'…
- The 10 best skins for Football Manager 2011 - 16 June 2011
Football Manager is, despite everything, a game about menus. You can and will spend most of your playing time staring at rows of numbers, so why not pretty them up a bit? We've collected five of the best Football Manager skins to make your stat crunching a little bit shinier. Find them, along with installation instructions, beneath the cut. Installing a skin couldn't be simpler, just go to C:\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2011\skins and drop them in (if you don't have a skins folder, just make one). Then open the in game preferences and tick 'always reload skin on confirm' and un-tick 'use skin cache'. Then select your skin from the dropdown menu. 1. Steklo I used Steklo back in last year's Football Manager and this year's version is as good as ever. Steklo has a sort of dark, simple, well laid out design that reminds me of the steam interface. 2. Pastel For those who…
- Best Football Manager 2011 signings - 3 May 2011
Since our last article on Football Manager 2011 Sports Interactive have put up one of their habitual data updates, making some players hard to obtain and bringing new ones into contention, so let's take a tour of the best bargain buys for your team in Football Manger 2011. Goalkeepers: Vincent Enyeama Enyeama has been the go to man for teams that need a bargain goalkeeper for years now. Clocking in at a mere £250k and eager to swap the Israeli leagues for somewhere more illustrious, his only downside is that he doesn't have EU membership, but his Nigeria caps should get him a work permit. Alex Smithies Yeah, that's right, the next generation of English goalkeeping is hiding out in League One Huddersfield. Alex Smithies can be picked up for a under £1 million and makes a serviceable backup keeper for any mid table team for one or two years before taking the number one jersey. Fawzi Chaou…
- Best Football Manager 2011 signings - 3 May 2011
Since our last article on Football Manager 2011 Sports Interactive have put up one of their habitual data updates, making some players hard to obtain and bringing new ones into contention, so let's take a tour of the best bargain buys for your team in Football Manger 2011. Goalkeepers: Vincent Enyeama Enyeama has been the go to man for teams that need a bargain goalkeeper for years now. Clocking in at a mere £250k and eager to swap the Israeli leagues for somewhere more illustrious, his only downside is that he doesn't have EU membership, but his Nigeria caps should get him a work permit. Alex Smithies Yeah, that's right, the next generation of English goalkeeping is hiding out in League One Huddersfield. Alex Smithies can be picked up for a under £1 million and makes a serviceable backup keeper for any mid table team for one or two years before taking the number one jersey. Fawzi Chaou…
- Football Manager 2011 update is live - 9 March 2011
The latest Football Manager 11 patch will update the player database to include all the hirings and firings of the January transfer window. As well as the updated rosters, the patch will add a ton of fixes, interface tweaks and balance adjustments. The changes will improve everything from the player/manager conversation system, to the accuracy of Uraguayan TV revenues. The full patch notes were posted on the Sports Interactive forums, and they're as lengthy as you might imagine for a sim as deep as Football Manager. The 4,000 word list of changes includes improvements to set piece behaviour on the pitch. Goalkeeper AI during corners is more solid, players mark more competently, and SI have "rebalanced number of shirt tugs vs trips." You'll no longer be able to overwork your players as much, as SI have squashed a bug that caused players not to go on holiday at the end of the season. You…
- Football Manager comes out on top for 2010 - 21 January 2011
Statistics for new retails sales across 2010 have been released, and it's been a big year for SEGA with Football Manager 2011 and 2010 taking the titles of first and second best-selling PC games., respectively. Read on for the full top 10. The top 10 PC games in 2010 were: 1 - Football Manager 2011 2 - Football Manager 2010 2 - The Sims 3 4 - World of WarCraft: Cataclysm 5 - StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty 6 - The Sims 3: Ambitions 7 - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 8 - Call of Duty: Black Ops 9 - The Sims 3: Design & High-Tech Stuff 10 - The Sims 3: World Adventures The chart, which only includes new retail purchases and not Steam sales, shows that the world continues to love The Sims and are still enthralled by Blizzard's games. PC gamers were also less enthusiastic about Call of Duty this year; Black Ops came in at number one for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms, but failed t…
- Football Manager dev awarded O.B.E. by the Queen - 1 January 2011
Studio Director of Sports Interactive, the studio behind the stellar Football Manager series, has been awarded an OBE by the Queen in the latest round of honours awards. In full, O.B.E. stands for Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and is one of a series of chivalric awards created by George V, the highest of which makes you a knight of the British Empire. Suffice to say, not too many game developers have made the esteemed honours lists. The co-founder of Sports Interactive, Olly Collyer, congratulated Jacobson on the Sports Interactive site, saying, "we think this is very much deserved for all the hard work involved in not only establishing a good sense of business to a raw and young Sports Interactive all those years ago, but also evolving the studio into an equal and more professional partner with its publisher and also a responsible one, via the involvement w…
- Weeklong Sale - 30% off on Football Manager 2011 - 15 December 2010
Football Manager 2011 is now on sale through Dec. 20th at 10AM PST. Act now and save!
